15 ms·

Author warns about 'epidemic of self-censorship'

110 points by pmoriarty 4y ago

thefounder 4y ago
I think there will be a push back against the current censorship and coercion. After a while people just get fed up. The longer it takes the bigger the swing. I wouldn't be surprised to see DeSantis president or someone even "worse".
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  I believe Trump was voted in by people who were fed up with the new sanctimonity, especially on topics like sexism and racism. Their defense was to vote for vulgarity and Trump seemed to be a master of that if nothing else.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    And the current one is definition of "anything but the last guy" too.
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    I suspect most of who supports him are not less sanctimonious, just in ways that preserve their status quo. They are not objecting self-censorship but objecting who and what gets self-censored.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Trump received 46% of the vote in 2016, which is less than Mitt Romney's 47% in the previous election, but squeaked by in the electoral college against an extremely unpopular opponent. The Republican share in the last 6 Presidential elections is 47%, 46%, 47%, 46%, 51%, 48%, the outlier being Bush's reelection in 2004. There's nothing special about Trump, electorally speaking. Republicans vote Republican.
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
      But how did Trump become the Republicans' candidate?
      - lapcat 4y ago
        There were a number of factors. "at 44.95%, Trump had the lowest percentage of the popular primary vote for a major party nominee since the 1988 Democratic Party presidential primaries." "A total of 17 major candidates entered the race. Prior to the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, this was the largest presidential primary field for any political party in American history." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presiden... Trump had a number of advantages: 1) He was already super famous. 2) He was an experienced TV actor and entertainer. 3) He was rich. 4) He was a non-politician, which voters like, because they hate politicians. 5) He dominated every news cycle by continually saying wildly controversial things. The news media showered him with coverage over every other candidate.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    I prefer vulgarity to censorship, regardless of whether it comes from the left or right. Trump's issue was his complete incompetence, not his vulgarity. Not that I liked his vulgarity, which was hardly presidential.
    - raxxorraxor 4y ago
      I do too. Not from the US and I don't think I would have taken the step to really vote for him. In Europe we have similar problems though. We had a pirate party that championed freedom of expression and technology open to everyone. Some in that party jumped on the feminist train and today nearly supports the opposite of what it once stood for. They complained about too many men and sexism in the party. Duh... Today they are yesterdays news but the party never really recovered and also left many politically homeless. Some of those vote for more radical parties.
- naasking 4y ago
  Didn't we already get that with Trump who is immune to criticisms of this sort? The swing has already started.
  - thefounder 4y ago
    Yeah but Trump was too much of an unstable clown to do anything meaningful. Trump made the whole thing about his persona. I think people like DeSantis are more on point(i.e policy not cult).
    - UncleMeat 4y ago
      - ghoward 4y ago
        UncleMeat 4y ago
        ghoward 4y ago
        Parents seem to like it, though, so I don't see what the problem is. And yes, people other than history faculty do know how to teach history better than history faculty. I don't trust academics.
        UncleMeat 4y ago
        ghoward 4y ago
- dfxm12 4y ago
  If you're pushing back against censorship & coercion, why would vote for the guy who worked with his state legislature to pass a bill (stop woke act) that was all about limiting what teachers could teach? Luckily, a judge blocked the bill on First Amendment grounds. Because despite all their saber rattling, the MO for US Republicans is to do things like ban books, sue teachers for teaching history, shun journalists, etc.
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    - daveoc64 4y ago
      What would that word be?
  - Georgelemental 4y ago
    Public school teachers are paid with taxpayer money, that private citizens are forced to give to the state whether they want to or not. And because of compulsory education, many of the students are forced to be in the classroom, whether they want to or not. It is completely expected and not at all "censorship" for the people's elected representatives to have a say in what employees of the people's government do with the people's children and the people's tax dollars. There is literally no other way to run a public school system.
- nine_k 4y ago
  Sadly, both of the major US parties are highly interested in grabbing power, even if it damages the the values of freedom :(
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  DeSantis is more of the same, perhaps even worse, just from a different political perspective. A swing towards tolerance would be nice though.
  - thefounder 4y ago
    I think we are past tolerance
- nicbou 4y ago
  I don't expect any. The reason people self-censor is that the fight just isn't worth it. They just want to carry on with their lives and not get dragged into a fight by people who care way more than them.
poszlem 4y ago
I am both happy to hear BBC talking about this, and also can't help but feel like they (alongside with the rest of MSM) are the main source of that problem (even bigger than social media, as they shape what social media landscape looks like). We just went through the most censorious (and self-censorship inducing) few years in my living memory (I am almost 40), where people who we "asking questions" were called all kind of names by all kind of news outlets.
- djaychela 4y ago
  I'd disagree that the BBC is more responsible for a backlash than social media is. I'd suggest that it's social media that shapes the wider media landscape (particularly in recent years twitter), not the other way round. There's also a huge difference between "just asking questions" and "just asking questions" - and there are a huge number of people who are doing so in a bad-faith manner. All IMO, of course.
  - mantas 4y ago
    A good chunk of social media is mainstream media, discussions around mainstream articles or driven by people working in mainstream media.
  - 543g43g43 4y ago
    I'd rather live in a world where raising certain questions is seen as "bad faith", than a world where the experts have decided that certain topics are "too important" to be discussed. Also - if your point of view is threatened by people just asking questions, then you really should think some more.
  - kryogen1c 4y ago
    > There's also a huge difference between "just asking questions" and "just asking questions" What is that? Let's pretend I'm a card carrying jackboot wearing nazi. What question could I just ask, in bad faith? How come black people commit more crime? How come more black people are in prison? Those are actually fantastic questions that, seriously considered, could lead to some significant societal change. I can't think of an instance where the good/bad faith of the asker has any bearing on the question.
Jarmsy 4y ago
"There is a difference between valid criticism, which should be part of free expression, and this kind of backlash, ugly personal insults, putting addresses of homes and children's schools online, trying to make people lose their jobs." That conflates some very different things. Of course posting someone's children's schools because of something they wrote is unacceptable. There are absolutely things that people can write which they should be removed from their job for though, and where it is appropriate to campaign for this as a response.
- djaychela 4y ago
  I think she's talking about the level at which this campaign would occur. In the past it would have been at a far higher level. Now, almost any sentence can be taken in the worst-faith way, and a campaign be started based on that assumption.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  Outside the confines of them making official representation about their employer or actions they would take under their authority/power/employment or while on the job, I do not believe there is anything someone writes for which they should be removed from their job.
  - Jarmsy 4y ago
    To clarify - say a schoolteacher writes expressing their strongly held personal racist beliefs (without specific reference to how this relates to their teaching role) would you consider that a reason?
    - wongarsu 4y ago
      That sounds like a great example of the confines of "actions they would take under their authority/power/employment or while on the job", if those racist beliefs are relevant to their teaching job. Or at least something that the school should follow up on to determine if their expressed beliefs lead to unjust actions in the real world.
    - 4y ago
honeybadger1 4y ago
Great article, this hits at the heart of 'it's not okay to offend' and why it's just dribble.
- tibbydudeza 4y ago
  If you offend society, you gonna end up in the village square tarred and feathered or worse thrown out into the woods - social harmony an all that. The right of the individual overruling all else is a baffling Western concept.
  - philovivero 4y ago
    No-one believes in the right of the individual overruling all else. I'm not sure how you are coming to that conclusion. If you offend all of society (or more realistically, most of it), then sure, you are going to have a bad few years. No-one really disagrees there. But if you offend some tiny segment of socieety, a single malicious and persistent "villager," then you should not have to endure that person spending all their time trying to ruin your life. If it's one person, you would get a restraining order. What do you do if it's 10,000 people, in a world of 7 billion? Clearly that's even smaller an influence than a single person in a village. We need a modern day equivalent of a restraining order against those 10,000 so they don't get you fired from your job, divorced from your wife, estranged from your kids, and sent packing from your bank. This is what everyone's upset about. No-one is defending the dictator wannabe who is advocating for murdering half the planet to get socialism to finally work. Everyone agrees that guy's a nut, and it's fine if he gets fired.
    - SyzygistSix 4y ago
      I think we can all agree their political views are nuts but if they are a stable and non-disruptive person who does a good job at the water treatment plant there is no need to fire or ostracize them. Having a set, or usually just a subset, of crazy beliefs is pretty normal. The issue is if that leads them to being disruptive or doing a poor job.
thathndude 4y ago
Such a good, and important, take on the state of affairs. Outright censorship is bad. But even worse is when an environment is fostered in which folks will preemptively self-censor. It’s terrifying.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  Everybody self censors all the time. We learn to do it as children, as it is a normal part of human psychology. It is so automatic that evidently people have forgotten that they do it.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    And spending some time as a young adult exploring that is crucial to a person's development. I'm reminded of a part in Illuminatus when one of the characters while high "...probably made a good argument for rape and murder while he was at it...". Spending time radically deconstructing societal expectations was very good for my development as a young 20-something. Fortunately, from what I hear anyway, there is good quality LSD available and certainly no shortage of dicks to kick.
    - slater- 4y ago
      Yes, thank you for this. Deconstruction is THE artistic skill. Sometimes the parts whose sum make up the whole are kind of ugly on their own. We shouldn't be afraid of this when it happens. There will always be the more literal-minded people who can't handle this, and I guess that's ok. But catering to them becomes a tiring, never-ending descent into boringness. Hopefully the kids actually taking acid these days are also laughing at some of the bizarre, authoritarian/well-meaning takes I keep reading on the internet, and just aren't commenting. Because they're too busy doing butt stuff.
- EntropyIsAHoax 4y ago
  How so? I personally prefer to live in a world where expressing certain opinions in public is socially unacceptable and will make you an outcast. For example, I don't want to hear anyone's transphobic opinions, as is the case with this author. I really wish she would self-censor like she claims is such an epidemic, instead of being featured in the BBC doing the exact opposite. Obviously in general I don't want someone to face violence for expressing an opinion, but I don't want to hear bigotry like this being echoed in the news, in social media, by my friends, etc... because I like living a peaceful life.
Kye 4y ago
>> "She continued: "Nothing demonstrates this better than the recent phenomenon of 'sensitivity readers' in the world of publishing, people whose job it is to cleanse unpublished manuscripts of potentially offensive words." That's such a gross misrepresentation. Does the article improve at all past this?
- senko 4y ago
  According to quick googling, this is exactly on the spot. Here's a Guardian article that talks positively about those roles and describes them in exactly the same way: > A sensitivity reader is an additional editor [...]. This individual will conduct a very specific read of the manuscript, and offer notes on characters from marginalised groups, or elements which may cause offence. (emphasis mine) Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/08/stop-moaning-sensitivity-readers-diversity-publishing https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/08/stop-m... Looks like the article could've used a sensitivity reader itself, if it caused yout to get so offended you didn't read the rest of it.
  - Kye 4y ago
    >> "Looks like the article could've used a sensitivity reader itself, if it caused yout to get so offended you didn't read the rest of it." This is also a gross misrepresentation. This article is drawing such a poor discussion.
- spoiler 4y ago
  Which part do you think it misrepresents specifically? Also some other HN comments here mentioned regurgitating of opinions on social media and how that influences this issue; so in the spirit of that, I recommend reading the article and forming your own! Not trying to be snide btw.
  - Kye 4y ago
    The function of a sensitivity reader. A sensitivity reader would, for example, remind a writer that "Eskimo" isn't actually a tribe, and suggest a much improved story by representing an actual northern tribe like Inuit or Yupik. They're there to help writers see past stereotypes, and that makes for better writing.
incomingpain 4y ago
I disagree with the author. There might be some self-censorship but the epidemic is actual censorship. As the article says, some people call it cancel culture but it has become obvious it's more insidious. The author is right, there are a ton of major consequences because of this censorship. >Such a climate could lead to "the death of curiosity, the death of learning and the death of creativity", the award-winning Nigerian author warned. This is tip of the iceberg. The consequences are so much worse. They see it from an artistic point of view. I see it from a politics and economics point of view. The good news it looks like we're past the peak. The politics behind all this is about to become quite irrelevant, most likely end up as a new religion.
sn0w_crash 4y ago
- fallingfrog 4y ago
  As far as a career goes, at some point expressing an opinion crosses over to creating a hostile work environment. As far as people yelling at each other online goes, you can’t really stop that. If you want stronger moderation, then people will complain that the mods are censoring them, if you want weaker moderation, people will complain about all the other people shouting at them. Not sure what the suggested solution would be. Perhaps the author wants the platform itself to favor her opinions specifically?
- EntropyIsAHoax 4y ago
  Ah yes. A famous best-selling author featured in the BBC is completely censored and her career is wrecked because... she got some angry tweets? What are you talking about?
subpixel 4y ago
How ironic! I considered linking to an interview with this author about the phenomenon of online swindlers in her home country when a debate about same sprung up in a company listserv. One side of the debate was offended that the topic was broached at all. I self-censored, realizing a factual account from a prominent Nigerian author would probably be dismissed and I would be tarred for appearing to take a side in a debate where race and colonialism were being held up as reasons people like me just don’t understand.
- baud147258 4y ago
  Do you still have that link? Could be interesting
  - subpixel 4y ago
    Argh, I have mistaken one Nigerian author for another: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49759392 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49759392
tibbydudeza 4y ago
Just some plain common sense is needed. Recently we had a spate of incidents of killings by pitbulls in South Africa prompting some people to call for the breed to banned and the dogs confiscated and put down. So, one seemingly intelligent pitbull owner took it upon herself to record a voicenote on a pitbull owners forum that had members of all races calling for black men to be castrated instead because of racist tropes of dogs and black people. She got arrested (we do have hate crime laws) and her landlord is busy evicting her from the rental property.
jongjong 4y ago
There is both self-censorship and literal censorship. When I was working for big corporations and SV startups, I was extremely careful about what I said online, including anonymously. I was even afraid to like or give a thumbs up to certain comments. After I joined the blockchain sector and started earning some passive income, I started posting every single thought that came to my mind. My ex-colleagues don't post anything on social media. They don't even click like on anything... They just consume but never interact. I'm not surprised why ESG narratives are so pervasive on social media; people are afraid to express any view to the contrary. There have been no negative career repercussions for liking or promoting ESG content; quite the opposite.
- pjc50 4y ago
  ESG?
  - jongjong 4y ago
    Environmental Social Governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_corporate_governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_cor... Wow, I thought everyone was aware of ESG by now (especially on HN). It seems that social media echo chambers keep getting worse...
    - pjc50 4y ago
      You said: > I'm not surprised why ESG narratives are so pervasive on social media; people are afraid to express any view to the contrary. There have been no negative career repercussions for liking or promoting ESG content; quite the opposite. .. OK, so now some more context: why is this bad? What is a "narrative" here? Why should there be negative repercussions?
      - BaseballPhysics 4y ago
        It's become a new wedge issue for Republicans, alongside trans rights, CRT, and the generic "woke left". Basically, some investors started considering broader elements of corporate governance in their decisions. Now the right has latched on, claiming that choosing to invest in companies that, say, commit to sustainability initiatives or fight workplace harrassment, are somehow engaging in woke censorship The irony is their solution is to try to ban the practice, thereby restricting freedom of association. Isn't it ironic?
pjc50 4y ago
Context for the author: https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/15/14910900/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-transgender-women-comments-apology https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/15/14910900/chimamanda...
- public_defender 4y ago
  Thanks. This is a good read.
notlukesky 4y ago
The elites (and the corporate journalists of billionaires) often control what is “allowable” as speech with reach. Free speech is allowable so long as it doesn’t have reach. Once you pass that line you become a target for elimination like Assange. Look for allowable discourse from weathervanes like billionaire owned and controlled media like the NY Times, Washington Post, The Economist etc… Remember when the FBI would target black authors: https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/09/fbi-monitored-african-american-writers-j-edgar-hoover https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/09/fbi-monitored-... The Overton window: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
- thenerdhead 4y ago
  And when they would police writers in general: https://web.archive.org/web/20220821062432/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/10/05/policing-americas-writers https://web.archive.org/web/20220821062432/https://www.newyo...
  - notlukesky 4y ago
    Soft power is enforced by hard power. Now the bidding for enforcement is outsourced to hall monitors on social media accusing even academics of being foreign agents or treasonous or some -ism.
great_tankard 4y ago
- senko 4y ago
  > I'm sure this has nothing to do with people pushing back on her goofy opinions Ad-hominem. > Not every thought that goes through a person's mind the need be put out into the open immediately. Straw man. > When you're from a marginalized community and you've had your existence questioned a thousand times, She's a black woman, I'd say there's a good chance she's been marginalized already and knows what she's talking about. > you can be excused for being a little impatient with someone who's actually curious the 1001st time. She's not talking about someone being a little impatient. To quote the end of the article: > this kind of backlash, ugly personal insults, putting addresses of homes and children's schools online, trying to make people lose their jobs. [...]. It is a virtual vigilante action whose aim is not just to silence the person who has spoken, but to create a vengeful atmosphere that deters others from speaking."
  - great_tankard 4y ago
    Ok I guess I have to spell this out explicitly: the self-censorship thing obviously applies doubly to the trolls and doxxers and "virtual vigilantes." Nobody deserves that kind of treatment.
    - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
      What happens when everyone who disagrees with your viewpoint is suddenly a "troll" or better yet, a "not-see?"
  - EntropyIsAHoax 4y ago
    > > Not every thought that goes through a person's mind the need be put out into the open immediately. > > Straw man. Doesn't sound like a straw man to me. What is self-censorship if not thinking through what you want to say before speaking? Generally when I speak I try to think about what effect my words will have, and if they would have what I consider to be a bad effect either on myself or others, I self-censor.
BaseballPhysics 4y ago
Fundamentally, the problem is its often very difficult to tell the difference between the brave iconoclast shining a light on sensitive issues, and the troll or worse, looking to cause harm to others. Is David Duke a dangerous voice for bigotry, or a brave man speaking out against a system? What about the famous Dutch cartoonist? Brave satirists, or racist firestarters? What about Ilhan Omar? Defender of Palestinian rights or anti-Semite? Is a sensitivity reader shining a light on an author's potential biases and blind spots, or are they a tool for censorship? Are k-pop groups on Twitter posting into alt-right hashtags disrupting communication among hate groups, or censoring alternative viewpoints? All of this is a matter of judgement. Many would say that, hey, it doesn't matter, speech should be free and unfettered without exception. Sticks and stones, etc. The danger of censorship is too high. Those in victimized groups, subject to harassment or worse, enabled by social networks and so forth, would profoundly disagree. After all, it's easy to say that now after decades of progress for victimized groups. It reminds me a lot of anti-vaxxers today questioning the need for the measles vaccine. To them the disease is just a memory, the side effects are more dangerous. And that's ignoring the fact that there's still unbelievable amounts of hate directed at victimized groups online. This author may have a very valid point. Maybe self-censorship is happening at a rate above what is desirable. But if my neighbor pops up online and advocates for white power and racial purity, you're darn right I want him to self-censor.
mschuster91 4y ago
Well yeah... you can be an asshole towards minorities or anyone else as long as you're not running afoul of libel and hate speech laws, that's called "freedom of speech". "Freedom of speech" however, and this is what many of the "cancel culture" whiners forget, also runs the other way around: when you behave like an asshole, drop N-bombs or otherwise become commercially untenable, - platforms like social media can decide they do not wish to be a platform for your speech - if not out of respect for their own brand, they have to take care to not threaten their relationships with advertisers as Twitter is finding out the hard way. The calculation is simple: the income from advertisers willing to show up next to Alex Jones-style crap is way, way lower than the income from advertisers that Twitter loses because the brands act proactively. - same applies for direct contracts from sponsors. While this is less common with book authors, media stars are, with "Ye" being the perfect example. - publishers and especially reviewers can decide they don't want to publish or review your books/media - fans can decide that they don't want to buy and read your books/media To sum up: You can be an asshole and claim you're just "asking questions" or "exercising your right to free speech", but you can't at the same time complain when actions have consequences and you're being held accountable. And a side note regarding the popular "just asking questions" excuse: for literally every single question that LGBT people or PoC get "asked", there are tons of answers on Google, in interviews, in media, in scientific literature. You don't need to answer a random Black person if it hurts them personally if you're writing out the N-word or a Jew if it hurts them if you deny the Holocaust - even if the specific person says it does not, the overwhelming majority of evidence and opinions will be very clear.
- trention 4y ago
  >actions have consequences and you're being held accountable. If there was no government-sanctioned affirmative action and if discrimination of the basis of race was not outlawed, all the consequences in the world would not change the fact that the "cancel culture whiners" (your own words) will rise in status (both social and economic) relative to minorities and liberals. So, yes - actions do have consequences, including for you.
upofadown 4y ago
>"We are all familiar with stories of people who have said or written something and then faced a terrible online backlash," she said. What proportion of these came out of Twitter? It seems to me at least that most of the abusive brigading comes from there. There seems to be something about how Twitter implements their "following" concept that creates arbitrary and pointless groups. Twitter is a bunch of virtual gangs fighting each other and any other discernible targets.
lakomen 4y ago
If you want to find truth, you have to post your unfiltered thoughts, or ideally speaking them to a friend or a group. Valve's Steam is a complete censorship platform Everywhere where profits are in the game, you will be censored. And let me tell you something else. The law or human rights don't end because it's "a private platform". This or those platforms are part of the areas law or human rights cover. My freedom of speech ends where I insult or threaten someone, unless this person is insulting or threatening themself. When I ask if there is a straight pride flag in Fallout 76 and get banned for that, that is unlawful and should be prosecuted. I'm part of the straight majority (95%), even asking why my sexuality isn't represented, but only gay and asexuality resulting in a ban? There is something wrong. Everywhere where there's a profit interest censorship is happening. Steam is an awful place. You might say, who cares about a platform for games? Our kids grow up with this and we adults are also being treated like kids there. Steam has a feature where you get banned for even a year or two years or even permanently, just for speaking your mind if it's not in line with the company policy you will get canceled aka banned. Hundreds of years on the front, our ancestors fighting for the right to free speech and them some out of law company makes up their own oppressive rules, claims it doesn't have to follow the laws or recognize human rights. Valve should be sued and broken apart.
- taolegal 4y ago
  > My freedom of speech ends where I insult or threaten someone nice belief, but I've got foundational law protecting my right to freedom of speech
- esparrohack 4y ago
  Oh yeah. Heterophobia. It’s all over the place now.
fallingfrog 4y ago
Does the author want stronger moderation, or weaker moderation? If you want stronger moderation, so people are more civil, well, that's a type of censorship, isn't it? If you want weaker moderation, then you should expect a lot of people to yell at you when you say something unpopular. You can't have it both ways.
- fallingfrog 4y ago
  The sense that I get, as a side note, is that people who complain about cancel culture don't understand, or can't accept, how deeply unpopular their opinions actually are. They assume that everyone secretly agrees with them, but for some reason nobody is saying it, so there must be some conspiracy afoot to silence them. The actual fact is that, as I pointed out above, you can make people be civil, but you can't make them agree with you.
- 4bpp 4y ago
  "When all you have is a hammer..." The problem doesn't seem to me like one that can be or should be solved (primarily) by turning the amount-of-moderation knob in one direction or the other. I think that the philosophical basis of free speech, in the version I personally prefer and believe to have enabled the formation of Western liberalism, is the idea that society will be better off if more people are exposed to more different viewpoints. Translated into prescriptions for action, this means that you ought to minimise censorship of speech that will expose more people to viewpoints they have not encountered yet, but actually ought to censor speech that aims to prevent people from being exposed to certain viewpoints (or at least work to limit its impact; the viewpoint that you should prevent people from being exposed to certain viewpoint is also a valid viewpoint that more people ought to be exposed to ceteris paribus, but if you have to trade off between censoring the one idea saying that you should censor dangerous ideas and 100 ideas that proliferation of the one idea would result in being censored as dangerous, then the latter win by numbers). "No censorship!" is a gloss of free speech that is catchy, but only really functions as a shorthand for the above version of it when addressed to people who already have the right mindset. An increasing number of people nowadays don't, as they are more driven by fear (of others, of uncomfortable ideas, and perhaps of themselves if they were to be exposed to those ideas) than intellectual curiosity, and this is the actual problem that we ought to be solving rather than just contemplating where to bring down the hammer of moderation.
helen___keller 4y ago
> young people were growing up "afraid to ask questions for fear of asking the wrong questions". This is not a problem young people have, this is a problem old people have. Young people grew up with social media and are very savvy about segmenting their public persona from their private one. Young people understand intuitively that asking an edgy question on your public persona is an act of edginess in itself. If you want to know why, the answer is that technology has weaponized the concept of push polling to its extreme (now “concern trolling” and such). As such it’s become difficult to distinguish legitimate discourse from bad-faith concern trolling. Young people understand this easily. Older people on the other hand I’ve seen struggle with these concepts. Regarding publishing and self-censorship in literature I can’t comment; most people aren’t publishing literature and I’m among the majority so I have no experience with that.
- trabant00 4y ago
  Oh yes, the proverbial wise young people who understand the world better. Not being able to be genuine on social media when they spend a large proportion of time "socializing" there clearly can't do any harm. In no way can this bring about a distorted view of reality and of what people actually think. No, not a chance, young people are savvy about these things.
  - helen___keller 4y ago
    Every source of media is a distorted view of reality. This has been true since the printing press was invented to today. There is no crystal ball. I’m saying that young people can navigate the environment they were raised in effectively. You mention “understand[ing] the world better” yet I made no comment about young people being wise and understanding the world. My only claim is that young people are capable of navigating between public and private personas such that they can satisfy their intellectual curiosity. We are not, as the author claimed, intellectually stifled by fear of asking the wrong question. Feel free to state why you think this is not true, rather than just offering a mocking tone.
  - t-3 4y ago
    It's not like people are genuine in real life though? Do you tell your coworkers about your politics, religion, or sex life?
deleted 4y ago
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esparrohack 4y ago
This is really gonna piss off the kids. We’re self-censoring Even now cus We know it’s dangerous to ask uncomfortable questions. Believe it or not, everyone over 30 is not just an idiot or a criminal. Massive backlash incoming. The USA is going to become very conservative again. These pendulum swings are giving me whiplash
robomartin 4y ago
We have been living a reality where you truly have to worry about your career and safety. This, in a western country where freedom is supposed to be the law of the land. Yet, that isn't reality today at all. Say the wrong thing and your career is over. Or worse. And, yes, I am sorry to say, the blood is entirely, 100% on the hands of the ideological left. Anyone who does not think the current status-quo is wrong and seriously detrimental should take a moment to imagine a reality where the right, rather than the left, has that level of dominance and control. That scenario would be just as horrific as the current reality. This isn't good for society, no matter which side has dominance. The public has the right to be well informed with facts and not to be subjected to constitutionally-protected indoctrination. The problem with the vast majority of the MSM and social media being ideologically one sided is that they create ignorance and false narratives that permeate the population. A simple example of this is what has been happening at the US southern border. People who only consume leftist MSM/social media material have absolutely no idea whatsoever that over five million people have effectively invaded the US in the last two years. No clue at all. Even beyond that, they have no idea that these people, who, by definition, are unemployed, are not counted in unemployment statistics. Or that a good number of them will likely take entry level jobs away from other --existing-- communities. They have no clue about just how badly this has expanded both human trafficking and the mass entry of dangerous drugs into the country. The fact that these kinds of things are not covered at all by MSM/social media entities makes for a population that is utterly ignorant of quite a range of realities. When it comes time to vote, this amounts to voter manipulation. If every media outlet constantly lies and manipulates the message, well, you are manipulating votes. This, again, is objectively wrong. Would you like the right to have dominance of the MSM and do the same thing? Likely not. It's wrong. The press is protected by the US constitution in order for them to inform the people, not lie, indoctrinate and polarize through constant pounding with unified one-sided ideological messaging.

110 points by pmoriarty 4y ago

I think there will be a push back against the current censorship and coercion. After a while people just get fed up. The longer it takes the bigger the swing. I wouldn't be surprised to see DeSantis president or someone even "worse".

raxxorraxor 4y ago
I believe Trump was voted in by people who were fed up with the new sanctimonity, especially on topics like sexism and racism. Their defense was to vote for vulgarity and Trump seemed to be a master of that if nothing else.
- ilyt 4y ago
  And the current one is definition of "anything but the last guy" too.
- throwaway290 4y ago
  I suspect most of who supports him are not less sanctimonious, just in ways that preserve their status quo. They are not objecting self-censorship but objecting who and what gets self-censored.
- lapcat 4y ago
  Trump received 46% of the vote in 2016, which is less than Mitt Romney's 47% in the previous election, but squeaked by in the electoral college against an extremely unpopular opponent. The Republican share in the last 6 Presidential elections is 47%, 46%, 47%, 46%, 51%, 48%, the outlier being Bush's reelection in 2004. There's nothing special about Trump, electorally speaking. Republicans vote Republican.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
    But how did Trump become the Republicans' candidate?
    - lapcat 4y ago
      There were a number of factors. "at 44.95%, Trump had the lowest percentage of the popular primary vote for a major party nominee since the 1988 Democratic Party presidential primaries." "A total of 17 major candidates entered the race. Prior to the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, this was the largest presidential primary field for any political party in American history." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presiden... Trump had a number of advantages: 1) He was already super famous. 2) He was an experienced TV actor and entertainer. 3) He was rich. 4) He was a non-politician, which voters like, because they hate politicians. 5) He dominated every news cycle by continually saying wildly controversial things. The news media showered him with coverage over every other candidate.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  I prefer vulgarity to censorship, regardless of whether it comes from the left or right. Trump's issue was his complete incompetence, not his vulgarity. Not that I liked his vulgarity, which was hardly presidential.
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    I do too. Not from the US and I don't think I would have taken the step to really vote for him. In Europe we have similar problems though. We had a pirate party that championed freedom of expression and technology open to everyone. Some in that party jumped on the feminist train and today nearly supports the opposite of what it once stood for. They complained about too many men and sexism in the party. Duh... Today they are yesterdays news but the party never really recovered and also left many politically homeless. Some of those vote for more radical parties.
naasking 4y ago
Didn't we already get that with Trump who is immune to criticisms of this sort? The swing has already started.
- thefounder 4y ago
  Yeah but Trump was too much of an unstable clown to do anything meaningful. Trump made the whole thing about his persona. I think people like DeSantis are more on point(i.e policy not cult).
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    - ghoward 4y ago
      - UncleMeat 4y ago
        ghoward 4y ago
        Parents seem to like it, though, so I don't see what the problem is. And yes, people other than history faculty do know how to teach history better than history faculty. I don't trust academics.
        UncleMeat 4y ago
        ghoward 4y ago
dfxm12 4y ago
If you're pushing back against censorship & coercion, why would vote for the guy who worked with his state legislature to pass a bill (stop woke act) that was all about limiting what teachers could teach? Luckily, a judge blocked the bill on First Amendment grounds. Because despite all their saber rattling, the MO for US Republicans is to do things like ban books, sue teachers for teaching history, shun journalists, etc.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  - daveoc64 4y ago
    What would that word be?
- Georgelemental 4y ago
  Public school teachers are paid with taxpayer money, that private citizens are forced to give to the state whether they want to or not. And because of compulsory education, many of the students are forced to be in the classroom, whether they want to or not. It is completely expected and not at all "censorship" for the people's elected representatives to have a say in what employees of the people's government do with the people's children and the people's tax dollars. There is literally no other way to run a public school system.
nine_k 4y ago
Sadly, both of the major US parties are highly interested in grabbing power, even if it damages the the values of freedom :(
SyzygistSix 4y ago
DeSantis is more of the same, perhaps even worse, just from a different political perspective. A swing towards tolerance would be nice though.
- thefounder 4y ago
  I think we are past tolerance
nicbou 4y ago
I don't expect any. The reason people self-censor is that the fight just isn't worth it. They just want to carry on with their lives and not get dragged into a fight by people who care way more than them.

poszlem 4y ago

I am both happy to hear BBC talking about this, and also can't help but feel like they (alongside with the rest of MSM) are the main source of that problem (even bigger than social media, as they shape what social media landscape looks like). We just went through the most censorious (and self-censorship inducing) few years in my living memory (I am almost 40), where people who we "asking questions" were called all kind of names by all kind of news outlets.

djaychela 4y ago
I'd disagree that the BBC is more responsible for a backlash than social media is. I'd suggest that it's social media that shapes the wider media landscape (particularly in recent years twitter), not the other way round. There's also a huge difference between "just asking questions" and "just asking questions" - and there are a huge number of people who are doing so in a bad-faith manner. All IMO, of course.
- mantas 4y ago
  A good chunk of social media is mainstream media, discussions around mainstream articles or driven by people working in mainstream media.
- 543g43g43 4y ago
  I'd rather live in a world where raising certain questions is seen as "bad faith", than a world where the experts have decided that certain topics are "too important" to be discussed. Also - if your point of view is threatened by people just asking questions, then you really should think some more.
- kryogen1c 4y ago
  > There's also a huge difference between "just asking questions" and "just asking questions" What is that? Let's pretend I'm a card carrying jackboot wearing nazi. What question could I just ask, in bad faith? How come black people commit more crime? How come more black people are in prison? Those are actually fantastic questions that, seriously considered, could lead to some significant societal change. I can't think of an instance where the good/bad faith of the asker has any bearing on the question.

Jarmsy 4y ago

"There is a difference between valid criticism, which should be part of free expression, and this kind of backlash, ugly personal insults, putting addresses of homes and children's schools online, trying to make people lose their jobs." That conflates some very different things. Of course posting someone's children's schools because of something they wrote is unacceptable. There are absolutely things that people can write which they should be removed from their job for though, and where it is appropriate to campaign for this as a response.

djaychela 4y ago
I think she's talking about the level at which this campaign would occur. In the past it would have been at a far higher level. Now, almost any sentence can be taken in the worst-faith way, and a campaign be started based on that assumption.
phpisthebest 4y ago
Outside the confines of them making official representation about their employer or actions they would take under their authority/power/employment or while on the job, I do not believe there is anything someone writes for which they should be removed from their job.
- Jarmsy 4y ago
  To clarify - say a schoolteacher writes expressing their strongly held personal racist beliefs (without specific reference to how this relates to their teaching role) would you consider that a reason?
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    That sounds like a great example of the confines of "actions they would take under their authority/power/employment or while on the job", if those racist beliefs are relevant to their teaching job. Or at least something that the school should follow up on to determine if their expressed beliefs lead to unjust actions in the real world.
  - 4y ago

honeybadger1 4y ago

Great article, this hits at the heart of 'it's not okay to offend' and why it's just dribble.

tibbydudeza 4y ago
If you offend society, you gonna end up in the village square tarred and feathered or worse thrown out into the woods - social harmony an all that. The right of the individual overruling all else is a baffling Western concept.
- philovivero 4y ago
  No-one believes in the right of the individual overruling all else. I'm not sure how you are coming to that conclusion. If you offend all of society (or more realistically, most of it), then sure, you are going to have a bad few years. No-one really disagrees there. But if you offend some tiny segment of socieety, a single malicious and persistent "villager," then you should not have to endure that person spending all their time trying to ruin your life. If it's one person, you would get a restraining order. What do you do if it's 10,000 people, in a world of 7 billion? Clearly that's even smaller an influence than a single person in a village. We need a modern day equivalent of a restraining order against those 10,000 so they don't get you fired from your job, divorced from your wife, estranged from your kids, and sent packing from your bank. This is what everyone's upset about. No-one is defending the dictator wannabe who is advocating for murdering half the planet to get socialism to finally work. Everyone agrees that guy's a nut, and it's fine if he gets fired.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    I think we can all agree their political views are nuts but if they are a stable and non-disruptive person who does a good job at the water treatment plant there is no need to fire or ostracize them. Having a set, or usually just a subset, of crazy beliefs is pretty normal. The issue is if that leads them to being disruptive or doing a poor job.

thathndude 4y ago

Such a good, and important, take on the state of affairs. Outright censorship is bad. But even worse is when an environment is fostered in which folks will preemptively self-censor. It’s terrifying.

amanaplanacanal 4y ago
Everybody self censors all the time. We learn to do it as children, as it is a normal part of human psychology. It is so automatic that evidently people have forgotten that they do it.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  And spending some time as a young adult exploring that is crucial to a person's development. I'm reminded of a part in Illuminatus when one of the characters while high "...probably made a good argument for rape and murder while he was at it...". Spending time radically deconstructing societal expectations was very good for my development as a young 20-something. Fortunately, from what I hear anyway, there is good quality LSD available and certainly no shortage of dicks to kick.
  - slater- 4y ago
    Yes, thank you for this. Deconstruction is THE artistic skill. Sometimes the parts whose sum make up the whole are kind of ugly on their own. We shouldn't be afraid of this when it happens. There will always be the more literal-minded people who can't handle this, and I guess that's ok. But catering to them becomes a tiring, never-ending descent into boringness. Hopefully the kids actually taking acid these days are also laughing at some of the bizarre, authoritarian/well-meaning takes I keep reading on the internet, and just aren't commenting. Because they're too busy doing butt stuff.
EntropyIsAHoax 4y ago
How so? I personally prefer to live in a world where expressing certain opinions in public is socially unacceptable and will make you an outcast. For example, I don't want to hear anyone's transphobic opinions, as is the case with this author. I really wish she would self-censor like she claims is such an epidemic, instead of being featured in the BBC doing the exact opposite. Obviously in general I don't want someone to face violence for expressing an opinion, but I don't want to hear bigotry like this being echoed in the news, in social media, by my friends, etc... because I like living a peaceful life.

Kye 4y ago

>> "She continued: "Nothing demonstrates this better than the recent phenomenon of 'sensitivity readers' in the world of publishing, people whose job it is to cleanse unpublished manuscripts of potentially offensive words." That's such a gross misrepresentation. Does the article improve at all past this?

senko 4y ago
According to quick googling, this is exactly on the spot. Here's a Guardian article that talks positively about those roles and describes them in exactly the same way: > A sensitivity reader is an additional editor [...]. This individual will conduct a very specific read of the manuscript, and offer notes on characters from marginalised groups, or elements which may cause offence. (emphasis mine) Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/08/stop-moaning-sensitivity-readers-diversity-publishing https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/08/stop-m... Looks like the article could've used a sensitivity reader itself, if it caused yout to get so offended you didn't read the rest of it.
- Kye 4y ago
  >> "Looks like the article could've used a sensitivity reader itself, if it caused yout to get so offended you didn't read the rest of it." This is also a gross misrepresentation. This article is drawing such a poor discussion.
spoiler 4y ago
Which part do you think it misrepresents specifically? Also some other HN comments here mentioned regurgitating of opinions on social media and how that influences this issue; so in the spirit of that, I recommend reading the article and forming your own! Not trying to be snide btw.
- Kye 4y ago
  The function of a sensitivity reader. A sensitivity reader would, for example, remind a writer that "Eskimo" isn't actually a tribe, and suggest a much improved story by representing an actual northern tribe like Inuit or Yupik. They're there to help writers see past stereotypes, and that makes for better writing.

incomingpain 4y ago

I disagree with the author. There might be some self-censorship but the epidemic is actual censorship. As the article says, some people call it cancel culture but it has become obvious it's more insidious. The author is right, there are a ton of major consequences because of this censorship. >Such a climate could lead to "the death of curiosity, the death of learning and the death of creativity", the award-winning Nigerian author warned. This is tip of the iceberg. The consequences are so much worse. They see it from an artistic point of view. I see it from a politics and economics point of view. The good news it looks like we're past the peak. The politics behind all this is about to become quite irrelevant, most likely end up as a new religion.

sn0w_crash 4y ago

fallingfrog 4y ago
As far as a career goes, at some point expressing an opinion crosses over to creating a hostile work environment. As far as people yelling at each other online goes, you can’t really stop that. If you want stronger moderation, then people will complain that the mods are censoring them, if you want weaker moderation, people will complain about all the other people shouting at them. Not sure what the suggested solution would be. Perhaps the author wants the platform itself to favor her opinions specifically?
EntropyIsAHoax 4y ago
Ah yes. A famous best-selling author featured in the BBC is completely censored and her career is wrecked because... she got some angry tweets? What are you talking about?

subpixel 4y ago

How ironic! I considered linking to an interview with this author about the phenomenon of online swindlers in her home country when a debate about same sprung up in a company listserv. One side of the debate was offended that the topic was broached at all. I self-censored, realizing a factual account from a prominent Nigerian author would probably be dismissed and I would be tarred for appearing to take a side in a debate where race and colonialism were being held up as reasons people like me just don’t understand.

baud147258 4y ago
Do you still have that link? Could be interesting
- subpixel 4y ago
  Argh, I have mistaken one Nigerian author for another: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49759392 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49759392

tibbydudeza 4y ago

Just some plain common sense is needed. Recently we had a spate of incidents of killings by pitbulls in South Africa prompting some people to call for the breed to banned and the dogs confiscated and put down. So, one seemingly intelligent pitbull owner took it upon herself to record a voicenote on a pitbull owners forum that had members of all races calling for black men to be castrated instead because of racist tropes of dogs and black people. She got arrested (we do have hate crime laws) and her landlord is busy evicting her from the rental property.

jongjong 4y ago

There is both self-censorship and literal censorship. When I was working for big corporations and SV startups, I was extremely careful about what I said online, including anonymously. I was even afraid to like or give a thumbs up to certain comments. After I joined the blockchain sector and started earning some passive income, I started posting every single thought that came to my mind. My ex-colleagues don't post anything on social media. They don't even click like on anything... They just consume but never interact. I'm not surprised why ESG narratives are so pervasive on social media; people are afraid to express any view to the contrary. There have been no negative career repercussions for liking or promoting ESG content; quite the opposite.

pjc50 4y ago
ESG?
- jongjong 4y ago
  Environmental Social Governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_corporate_governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_cor... Wow, I thought everyone was aware of ESG by now (especially on HN). It seems that social media echo chambers keep getting worse...
  - pjc50 4y ago
    You said: > I'm not surprised why ESG narratives are so pervasive on social media; people are afraid to express any view to the contrary. There have been no negative career repercussions for liking or promoting ESG content; quite the opposite. .. OK, so now some more context: why is this bad? What is a "narrative" here? Why should there be negative repercussions?
    - BaseballPhysics 4y ago
      It's become a new wedge issue for Republicans, alongside trans rights, CRT, and the generic "woke left". Basically, some investors started considering broader elements of corporate governance in their decisions. Now the right has latched on, claiming that choosing to invest in companies that, say, commit to sustainability initiatives or fight workplace harrassment, are somehow engaging in woke censorship The irony is their solution is to try to ban the practice, thereby restricting freedom of association. Isn't it ironic?

pjc50 4y ago

Context for the author: https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/15/14910900/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-transgender-women-comments-apology https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/15/14910900/chimamanda...

public_defender 4y ago
Thanks. This is a good read.

notlukesky 4y ago

The elites (and the corporate journalists of billionaires) often control what is “allowable” as speech with reach. Free speech is allowable so long as it doesn’t have reach. Once you pass that line you become a target for elimination like Assange. Look for allowable discourse from weathervanes like billionaire owned and controlled media like the NY Times, Washington Post, The Economist etc… Remember when the FBI would target black authors: https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/09/fbi-monitored-african-american-writers-j-edgar-hoover https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/09/fbi-monitored-... The Overton window: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

thenerdhead 4y ago
And when they would police writers in general: https://web.archive.org/web/20220821062432/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/10/05/policing-americas-writers https://web.archive.org/web/20220821062432/https://www.newyo...
- notlukesky 4y ago
  Soft power is enforced by hard power. Now the bidding for enforcement is outsourced to hall monitors on social media accusing even academics of being foreign agents or treasonous or some -ism.

great_tankard 4y ago

senko 4y ago
> I'm sure this has nothing to do with people pushing back on her goofy opinions Ad-hominem. > Not every thought that goes through a person's mind the need be put out into the open immediately. Straw man. > When you're from a marginalized community and you've had your existence questioned a thousand times, She's a black woman, I'd say there's a good chance she's been marginalized already and knows what she's talking about. > you can be excused for being a little impatient with someone who's actually curious the 1001st time. She's not talking about someone being a little impatient. To quote the end of the article: > this kind of backlash, ugly personal insults, putting addresses of homes and children's schools online, trying to make people lose their jobs. [...]. It is a virtual vigilante action whose aim is not just to silence the person who has spoken, but to create a vengeful atmosphere that deters others from speaking."
- great_tankard 4y ago
  Ok I guess I have to spell this out explicitly: the self-censorship thing obviously applies doubly to the trolls and doxxers and "virtual vigilantes." Nobody deserves that kind of treatment.
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    What happens when everyone who disagrees with your viewpoint is suddenly a "troll" or better yet, a "not-see?"
- EntropyIsAHoax 4y ago
  > > Not every thought that goes through a person's mind the need be put out into the open immediately. > > Straw man. Doesn't sound like a straw man to me. What is self-censorship if not thinking through what you want to say before speaking? Generally when I speak I try to think about what effect my words will have, and if they would have what I consider to be a bad effect either on myself or others, I self-censor.

BaseballPhysics 4y ago

Fundamentally, the problem is its often very difficult to tell the difference between the brave iconoclast shining a light on sensitive issues, and the troll or worse, looking to cause harm to others. Is David Duke a dangerous voice for bigotry, or a brave man speaking out against a system? What about the famous Dutch cartoonist? Brave satirists, or racist firestarters? What about Ilhan Omar? Defender of Palestinian rights or anti-Semite? Is a sensitivity reader shining a light on an author's potential biases and blind spots, or are they a tool for censorship? Are k-pop groups on Twitter posting into alt-right hashtags disrupting communication among hate groups, or censoring alternative viewpoints? All of this is a matter of judgement. Many would say that, hey, it doesn't matter, speech should be free and unfettered without exception. Sticks and stones, etc. The danger of censorship is too high. Those in victimized groups, subject to harassment or worse, enabled by social networks and so forth, would profoundly disagree. After all, it's easy to say that now after decades of progress for victimized groups. It reminds me a lot of anti-vaxxers today questioning the need for the measles vaccine. To them the disease is just a memory, the side effects are more dangerous. And that's ignoring the fact that there's still unbelievable amounts of hate directed at victimized groups online. This author may have a very valid point. Maybe self-censorship is happening at a rate above what is desirable. But if my neighbor pops up online and advocates for white power and racial purity, you're darn right I want him to self-censor.

mschuster91 4y ago

Well yeah... you can be an asshole towards minorities or anyone else as long as you're not running afoul of libel and hate speech laws, that's called "freedom of speech". "Freedom of speech" however, and this is what many of the "cancel culture" whiners forget, also runs the other way around: when you behave like an asshole, drop N-bombs or otherwise become commercially untenable, - platforms like social media can decide they do not wish to be a platform for your speech - if not out of respect for their own brand, they have to take care to not threaten their relationships with advertisers as Twitter is finding out the hard way. The calculation is simple: the income from advertisers willing to show up next to Alex Jones-style crap is way, way lower than the income from advertisers that Twitter loses because the brands act proactively. - same applies for direct contracts from sponsors. While this is less common with book authors, media stars are, with "Ye" being the perfect example. - publishers and especially reviewers can decide they don't want to publish or review your books/media - fans can decide that they don't want to buy and read your books/media To sum up: You can be an asshole and claim you're just "asking questions" or "exercising your right to free speech", but you can't at the same time complain when actions have consequences and you're being held accountable. And a side note regarding the popular "just asking questions" excuse: for literally every single question that LGBT people or PoC get "asked", there are tons of answers on Google, in interviews, in media, in scientific literature. You don't need to answer a random Black person if it hurts them personally if you're writing out the N-word or a Jew if it hurts them if you deny the Holocaust - even if the specific person says it does not, the overwhelming majority of evidence and opinions will be very clear.

trention 4y ago
>actions have consequences and you're being held accountable. If there was no government-sanctioned affirmative action and if discrimination of the basis of race was not outlawed, all the consequences in the world would not change the fact that the "cancel culture whiners" (your own words) will rise in status (both social and economic) relative to minorities and liberals. So, yes - actions do have consequences, including for you.

upofadown 4y ago

>"We are all familiar with stories of people who have said or written something and then faced a terrible online backlash," she said. What proportion of these came out of Twitter? It seems to me at least that most of the abusive brigading comes from there. There seems to be something about how Twitter implements their "following" concept that creates arbitrary and pointless groups. Twitter is a bunch of virtual gangs fighting each other and any other discernible targets.

lakomen 4y ago

If you want to find truth, you have to post your unfiltered thoughts, or ideally speaking them to a friend or a group. Valve's Steam is a complete censorship platform Everywhere where profits are in the game, you will be censored. And let me tell you something else. The law or human rights don't end because it's "a private platform". This or those platforms are part of the areas law or human rights cover. My freedom of speech ends where I insult or threaten someone, unless this person is insulting or threatening themself. When I ask if there is a straight pride flag in Fallout 76 and get banned for that, that is unlawful and should be prosecuted. I'm part of the straight majority (95%), even asking why my sexuality isn't represented, but only gay and asexuality resulting in a ban? There is something wrong. Everywhere where there's a profit interest censorship is happening. Steam is an awful place. You might say, who cares about a platform for games? Our kids grow up with this and we adults are also being treated like kids there. Steam has a feature where you get banned for even a year or two years or even permanently, just for speaking your mind if it's not in line with the company policy you will get canceled aka banned. Hundreds of years on the front, our ancestors fighting for the right to free speech and them some out of law company makes up their own oppressive rules, claims it doesn't have to follow the laws or recognize human rights. Valve should be sued and broken apart.

taolegal 4y ago
> My freedom of speech ends where I insult or threaten someone nice belief, but I've got foundational law protecting my right to freedom of speech
esparrohack 4y ago
Oh yeah. Heterophobia. It’s all over the place now.

fallingfrog 4y ago

Does the author want stronger moderation, or weaker moderation? If you want stronger moderation, so people are more civil, well, that's a type of censorship, isn't it? If you want weaker moderation, then you should expect a lot of people to yell at you when you say something unpopular. You can't have it both ways.

fallingfrog 4y ago
The sense that I get, as a side note, is that people who complain about cancel culture don't understand, or can't accept, how deeply unpopular their opinions actually are. They assume that everyone secretly agrees with them, but for some reason nobody is saying it, so there must be some conspiracy afoot to silence them. The actual fact is that, as I pointed out above, you can make people be civil, but you can't make them agree with you.
4bpp 4y ago
"When all you have is a hammer..." The problem doesn't seem to me like one that can be or should be solved (primarily) by turning the amount-of-moderation knob in one direction or the other. I think that the philosophical basis of free speech, in the version I personally prefer and believe to have enabled the formation of Western liberalism, is the idea that society will be better off if more people are exposed to more different viewpoints. Translated into prescriptions for action, this means that you ought to minimise censorship of speech that will expose more people to viewpoints they have not encountered yet, but actually ought to censor speech that aims to prevent people from being exposed to certain viewpoints (or at least work to limit its impact; the viewpoint that you should prevent people from being exposed to certain viewpoint is also a valid viewpoint that more people ought to be exposed to ceteris paribus, but if you have to trade off between censoring the one idea saying that you should censor dangerous ideas and 100 ideas that proliferation of the one idea would result in being censored as dangerous, then the latter win by numbers). "No censorship!" is a gloss of free speech that is catchy, but only really functions as a shorthand for the above version of it when addressed to people who already have the right mindset. An increasing number of people nowadays don't, as they are more driven by fear (of others, of uncomfortable ideas, and perhaps of themselves if they were to be exposed to those ideas) than intellectual curiosity, and this is the actual problem that we ought to be solving rather than just contemplating where to bring down the hammer of moderation.

helen___keller 4y ago

> young people were growing up "afraid to ask questions for fear of asking the wrong questions". This is not a problem young people have, this is a problem old people have. Young people grew up with social media and are very savvy about segmenting their public persona from their private one. Young people understand intuitively that asking an edgy question on your public persona is an act of edginess in itself. If you want to know why, the answer is that technology has weaponized the concept of push polling to its extreme (now “concern trolling” and such). As such it’s become difficult to distinguish legitimate discourse from bad-faith concern trolling. Young people understand this easily. Older people on the other hand I’ve seen struggle with these concepts. Regarding publishing and self-censorship in literature I can’t comment; most people aren’t publishing literature and I’m among the majority so I have no experience with that.

trabant00 4y ago
Oh yes, the proverbial wise young people who understand the world better. Not being able to be genuine on social media when they spend a large proportion of time "socializing" there clearly can't do any harm. In no way can this bring about a distorted view of reality and of what people actually think. No, not a chance, young people are savvy about these things.
- helen___keller 4y ago
  Every source of media is a distorted view of reality. This has been true since the printing press was invented to today. There is no crystal ball. I’m saying that young people can navigate the environment they were raised in effectively. You mention “understand[ing] the world better” yet I made no comment about young people being wise and understanding the world. My only claim is that young people are capable of navigating between public and private personas such that they can satisfy their intellectual curiosity. We are not, as the author claimed, intellectually stifled by fear of asking the wrong question. Feel free to state why you think this is not true, rather than just offering a mocking tone.
- t-3 4y ago
  It's not like people are genuine in real life though? Do you tell your coworkers about your politics, religion, or sex life?

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esparrohack 4y ago

This is really gonna piss off the kids. We’re self-censoring Even now cus We know it’s dangerous to ask uncomfortable questions. Believe it or not, everyone over 30 is not just an idiot or a criminal. Massive backlash incoming. The USA is going to become very conservative again. These pendulum swings are giving me whiplash

robomartin 4y ago

We have been living a reality where you truly have to worry about your career and safety. This, in a western country where freedom is supposed to be the law of the land. Yet, that isn't reality today at all. Say the wrong thing and your career is over. Or worse. And, yes, I am sorry to say, the blood is entirely, 100% on the hands of the ideological left. Anyone who does not think the current status-quo is wrong and seriously detrimental should take a moment to imagine a reality where the right, rather than the left, has that level of dominance and control. That scenario would be just as horrific as the current reality. This isn't good for society, no matter which side has dominance. The public has the right to be well informed with facts and not to be subjected to constitutionally-protected indoctrination. The problem with the vast majority of the MSM and social media being ideologically one sided is that they create ignorance and false narratives that permeate the population. A simple example of this is what has been happening at the US southern border. People who only consume leftist MSM/social media material have absolutely no idea whatsoever that over five million people have effectively invaded the US in the last two years. No clue at all. Even beyond that, they have no idea that these people, who, by definition, are unemployed, are not counted in unemployment statistics. Or that a good number of them will likely take entry level jobs away from other --existing-- communities. They have no clue about just how badly this has expanded both human trafficking and the mass entry of dangerous drugs into the country. The fact that these kinds of things are not covered at all by MSM/social media entities makes for a population that is utterly ignorant of quite a range of realities. When it comes time to vote, this amounts to voter manipulation. If every media outlet constantly lies and manipulates the message, well, you are manipulating votes. This, again, is objectively wrong. Would you like the right to have dominance of the MSM and do the same thing? Likely not. It's wrong. The press is protected by the US constitution in order for them to inform the people, not lie, indoctrinate and polarize through constant pounding with unified one-sided ideological messaging.